25 May 2012 Edition

Another View

Too close to call

• Across the state ordinary people are listening, learning, debating and deciding on the Austerity Treaty

» Eoin Ó Broin

In one week alone you had Enda Kenny insulting unemployed workers in Athlone, Michael Noonan belittling the suffering of the Greek people, and Richard Bruton giving the game away in revealing the Government’s plan to run the referendum again if they didn’t get a ‘Yes’ vote

EU AUSTERITY TREATY CAMPAIGN GOES DOWN TO THE WIRE

I LIKE European Union referendum campaigns.
It’s not because I’m a bit of an EU geek, though clearly I am. It’s because
these campaigns provide us, the public, with a real opportunity to scrutinise
the EU and its impact on our lives.

Throughout this campaign I have met
journalists from across the EU who remark on the high level of public
engagement and awareness among ordinary voters about the issues at stake in the
referendum.

In bars and taxis, people are talking about
structural deficits, economic partnerships, austerity and the growth agenda.

This is, in and of itself, a good thing. It
is democracy at work: the people listening, learning, debating and finally
deciding.

At the start, both sides are eager to
display their technical knowledge and competence of the issues. The debates are
more turgid and jargon filled.

Then, once the technical test is complete,
we all get down to the real arguments about how the treaty will impact on real
people’s lives.

At the heart of this campaign have been two
competing claims.

Those of us on the ‘NO’ side have argued
that supporting this treaty will mean more austerity in the future. Hitting the
treaty’s 0.5% structural deficit target will require an additional €6billion in
tax hikes and spending cuts post-2015.

For their part, the ‘Yes’ side are keen to
draw people away from the Austerity Treaty and focus instead on the issue of
accessing ESM emergency funding in 2014. They claim that no emergency funding
would lead to even greater austerity, as the state would have to balance its
books in a single year.

Alongside this key fault line has been the
issue of economic sovereignty. The ‘NO’ side highlights the increased powers
for the European Commission and European Court of Justice if the treaty is
passed. Interestingly, the ‘Yes’ side seemed content to ignore rather than
refute these claims.

Three weeks into the campaign and the
media, if not the public, seemed to be developing a bit of referendum fatigue.
Forlorn faces greeted spokespersons on the plinth in Leinster House as both
sides traded claim and counter claim for the 21st day in a row.

Fortunately, at least for the press corps,
a few good gaffes do wonders for their spirits and, along with the inevitable
focus on personalities, seems to get the hacks through the day.

While no group ever runs a perfect
campaign, the ‘Yes’ side does seem to have made the most mistakes.

In one week alone you had Enda Kenny
insulting unemployed workers in Athlone, Michael Noonan belittling the
suffering of the Greek people, and Richard Bruton giving the game away in
revealing the Government’s plan to run the referendum again if they didn’t get
a ‘Yes’ vote.

On the ‘NO’ side, Sinn Féin’s unwise
quoting of pro-treaty economists provided a little light distraction to an
otherwise strong start to the campaign. Unfortunately, Joe Higgins’s poor
performance on the TV3 debate and Richard Boyd Barrett’s €10billion tax gaffe
were more damaging to the ‘NO’ campaign.

And then there was poor old Mícheál Martin,
like the eager schoolchild at the back of the class, his hand raised high but
ignored by the teacher and his classmates. The Soldiers of Destiny (or as they
are known in Clondalkin, ‘The Footsoldiers of Austerity’) desperately tried to
insert their leader into the campaign, but to little avail.

Declan Ganley’s late appearance clearly
unnerved Fine Gael, though not as much as their Mayor of Longford James Keogh,
who called on his fellow Blueshirts to reject the treaty as it was bad for
business. His call was echoed by Labour councillors in Dublin and Galway.

For me the enduring image of the campaign
so far has been the unwillingness of Enda Kenny to debate Gerry Adams head to
head.

Everyone knows that Enda can’t hack it
without a script. But if he doesn’t have the bottle to debate Gerry on TV3,
imagine what he’s like in the European Council negotiations with Angela Merkel.
Hardly surprising then that the treaty is such a bad deal for Ireland.

The fate of the referendum now hangs with
the undecideds. As I write this with a week to go, it’s all to play for.